A DIFFICULT DEMAND OF DISCIPLESHIP

By A.J. Mattill, Jr.

According to Matthew 8:21-22, combined with the parallel passage in Luke 9:59-60, Jesus said to one of his disciples, "Go with me." But the disciple replied, "Lord, let me wait till I go back and bury my father." Jesus answered like this, "Let the dead bury their own dead. As for you, come with me and preach the kingdom of God." Now let us put on our freethought spectacles and scrutinize this passage.

1. Making Sense of Nonsense

Exactly what is the meaning of Jesus' obscure saying, "Let the dead bury their own dead"? Taken literally, this difficult demand of discipleship is pure nonsense, for the physically dead do not rise up out of their graves to bury the unburied dead. Nor can the physically dead bury themselves, as has been suggested. Hence numerous proposals for clarification are on the table.

A. Perhaps the most popular attempt to make sense of Jesus' words is this: "Let the spiritually dead bury their own physically dead," the spiritually dead being those who do not respond to Jesus' call to follow him. B. Others think that Jesus used a proverbial saying which really means, "Cut yourself adrift from the past when matters of present interest call for your whole attention." C. Some suggest that the difficulty arises from a faulty translation of the Aramaic original of the saying in question. Correctly translated, the saying reads, "Leave the dead to him who buries dead bodies." A similar suggestion is this: `"Let the pallbearers bury the dead." Or, `"Leave the dead to their grave diggers."

D. Now hear this! Jesus' obscure saying is really a paradoxical way of saying, "The business of burying your father must look after itself. You, on the other hand, have more important work to do." E. Another paradox: "Let the dead bury each other the best way they can." These so-called paradoxes aren't paradoxes—they're nonsense! F. Try this idea on for size: "Let the waverers bury their dead." G. Another suggestion: Jesus didn't intend these words to be taken literally. He simply wanted to stir thought. If that's the case, he succeeded.

In short, here again we find Jesus, "the master teacher," violating Cobbett's Rule: "I speak not only so I can be understood, but so that I cannot be misunderstood."

2. A Startling Statement

"Let the dead bury their own dead" is not only difficult and obscure but it is startling, to say the least. Commentators called it "harsh," "heartless," "ruthlessly hard," "stern," and "unfeeling." Jesus' tone, they say, is "peremptory" and "dogmatic."

Dr. de Loosten, head physician at the Holstein Provincial Institute for the Insane in Neustadt, whose writings date from 1905 to 1913, found that Jesus' startling statement shows that "Jesus had lost all natural human feeling." (See Walter E. Bundy, The Psychic Health of Jesus, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922, p. 73)

Commenting on our passage, scholar Ernest Renan found that Jesus' words are "like a fire utterly consuming life, and reducing everything to a frightful wilderness. The harsh and gloomy feeling of distaste for the world ... was originated ... by the sombre giant whom a kind of grand presentiment was withdrawing, more and more, out of the pale of humanity. We should almost say that, in these moments of conflict with the most legitimate cravings of the heart, Jesus had forgotten the pleasure of living, of loving, of seeing, and of feeling." (Renan, The Life of Jesus, New York: Modern Library, 1927; originally published in 1863, pp. 288-290)

Jesus' statement deserves these unkind remarks because his attitude flies in the face of the Jewish conviction that giving the dead a proper burial is one of the most serious responsibilities of the family. The honoring of one's parents is deeply rooted in the Jewish consciousness (Exodus 20:12). The duty of burying one's father was so sacred that it dispensed one from the duty of reciting the Shema, that is Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:12-21; Numbers 15:37-41 (Berakoth 3:1).

According to Leviticus 21:2-3, even a priest, who ordinarily must avoid the defiling contact with the dead, by touching a corpse or assisting in preparing it for burial, was permitted to bury his father. Even looking after one's father during the weakness of old age was a duty more holy and urgent than any other.

When Jews buried their dead, they believed they were imitating God, who buried Moses (Deuteronomy 34:6). And to assist at a funeral was such a sacred obligation that a man could interrupt his study of the Torah (the sacred Jewish religious writings and law) to bear out a corpse.

Against this background, we can imagine the disciple in tears, grieving over the loss of his beloved father, and eager to fulfill his pious duty of burying his father. In this state of intense emotion, the disciple pleads with Jesus to let him go back and bury his dear dad. Jesus, however, shows no sympathy for the man in his time of great loss. Instead of condolences, Jesus blurts out harsh words, cold as ice, "Let the dead bury their own dead!" No wonder, then, that Jesus has been called "harsh," "heartless," a man who has "lost all natural human feeling."

When Jesus asserted that following him trumps all family obligations, he simply overestimated the importance of himself and his mission, for the kingdom of God, which the disciple was to proclaim, has turned out to be nothing but a figment of the biblical imagination.

3. Aftershock

Jesus' cold-blooded demand has had chilling consequences. According to Pope Gregory the Great (about 540-604), we ought to ignore our parents, hate them (Luke 14:26), and flee from them when they hinder us in following the Lord. Gregory's view was accepted by the Church. In all circumstances the relationship between child and parent was secondary to the relationship between man and God. Numerous saints were honored for deserting their nearest relatives. Incidentally. Gregory burnt the great library of Rome, proclaiming, "Ignorance is the mother of devotion." Those are the truest words Gregory ever spoke!